Learn some new ways to express “so so” in Chinese

Posted by Grace Feng on June 5, 2012

Usually “so so” can be expressed as “还行吧 hái xíng ba” in Chinese language. However, there are actually lots of ways to express the same meaning. There are slight differences between them that you can use to leverage your expressions. Hopefully from this Learn Chinese online blog you’ll get to know most of the “so so” ways in Chinese.

“还行吧 hái xíng ba” itself means “It’s okay, but not that good. ” you can also use a few other options that are equivalent to this one :

hái guòdéqù
还过得去

hái kěyǐ
还可以

hái còuhe
还凑合

You can also use a few Chinese idioms alone to serve your purpose. These idioms are slightly more negative than the above :

mǎmahūhū
马马虎虎

miǎnmiǎnqiǎngqiǎng
勉勉强强

chāqiángrényì
差强人意

You can also say:

háihǎo la
还好啦

bù suàn chà
不算差

jiāngjiu
将就

They are slightly more positive than the three idioms.

Now we’ll practice them in the following conversation :

A: zuìjìn zěnmeyàng?
A: 最近怎么样?

A: How are you lately?

B: hái guòdéqù.
B: 还过得去.

B: So so.

A: kàn guò wǒ tuījiàn de nà bù diànyǐng le ma?
A: 看过我推荐的那部电影了吗?

A: Have you seen the movie I recommended?

B: kàn le， mǎmahūhū, bùtàihǎo kàn。
B: 看了，马马虎虎, 不太好看。

B: Yes, it was so so, not that good.

A: nà nǐ zhōumò yǒu shénme ānpái?
A: 那你周末有什么安排?

A: Got any plan for the weekend?

B: qù Nánshān gōngyuán， tīngshuō nàge dìfang hái kěyǐ。
B: 去南山公园，听说那个地方还可以。

B: I plan to go to Nan Shan park, it is said to be an OK place.

A: shì ā， jìnchù hǎowán de gōngyuán zhēn bù duō， nǐ jiù xiān jiāngjiu yīxià ba!
A: 是啊，近处好玩的公园真不多，你就先将就一下吧!

A: Well, yeah, there are actually not that many parks nearby, you can’t be too picky.

B: děng wǒ mǎi le chē， wǒ jiù qù yuǎn yīxiē de dìfang dùjià， bùzài zhèyàng chāqiángrényì de guòrìzi。
B: 等我买了车，我就去远一些的地方度假，不再这样差强人意的过日子。

B: Once I bought a car, I will go spend my vacation somewhere afar. I will have a better life.

A: nà nǐ de jiàzhào kǎo guò le ma?
A: 那你的驾照考过了吗?

A: Have you passed your driving test?

B: kǎo le sāncì， zuìhòu yīcì miǎnmiǎnqiǎngqiǎng guò le。
B: 考了三次，最后一次勉勉强强过了。

B: After two failed driving tests, I barely passed the last one.

Make sure you understand all the content of the conversation. You’ll find out that actually “so so” is a very high frequency expression. But at the same time, there are so many ways of saying it. Try to practice all of them in your spare time. The example sentences in the conversation can be memorized so you can reuse then in your own conversation.

 

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